Mirror Sisters
Story by Allison Quaid. Illustrations by Oryslava Knyzhatko.
Young Sarah Donovan sat cross-legged on her modest bed, gazing down into an old, glass hand mirror, its back and edges blooming with frosted green flowers. The child frowned down at her reflection, her eyes focused on the ears that were too big and stuck out of her long hair, the too-red cheeks, and the tiny mouth.
She had not left her room since her brother’s and his friends berating calls had driven her into hiding, and much of her time since had been spent living inside the mirror and the flaws it bounced back at her. You just dither about, reading nonsense fairytales, her brother’s voice echoed inside her head. You don’t do your chores. She’d tried to say she’d done all her chores, but he’d cut across her saying, You do them half-assed, which is as bad as not at all. You’re a silly child with silly notions, and no one will ever love your Dumbo ears!
The words wouldn’t go away. They darkened her face, making her curse her ugly features until the tears spilled over, at last spurring her to leap from her bed still in her pajamas and rush from the small, creaky farmhouse into the grass, barefoot. She used her usual stepping stones to fly across the creek and then rushed to Robin’s pristine white house and approached her bedroom window. One rap on the glass and Robin was opening it with a grin. Sarah saw Robin’s hand mirror on the bed as she climbed inside. Robin’s was of the same tinted glass, but her white, frosted trimmings depicted birds in flight.
“What’s wrong?” asked Robin when she saw Sarah’s tears. “I’m so ugly, no one will ever look at me,” she blubbered. “I’ll be stuck here my entire life.”
Robin rushed to grab her mirror and hold it up for Sarah to look into as she said, “But you’re the one with beautiful long brown hair, and those green eyes are to die for. You’re prettier than the Little Mermaid,” she added, referencing their favorite fairy tale. Sarah let her mirror hang at her side as she gazed in Robin’s. She tilted her head and ran a hand through her silky hair. A smile lit her green eyes, which she just now noticed resembled gemstones. “Thanks, Robin. I do like my hair.”
Robin smiled at her friend’s happiness, but it morphed into a frown as she flipped the mirror over to appraise herself. “My hair, on the other hand, looks like a haystack, and I have dull brown eyes.”
“What? You have beautiful skin and long legs,” said Sarah, holding up her mirror and stepping back so Robin could appraise herself. “You could be a femme fatale action hero in a movie.”
Robin began to grin and touched her smooth cheek. “Va-va-voom!” said Sarah, wiggling her brows.
The girls burst into giggles, and when they each had a fluffy pillow in hand, the real fun began. The next day, as the two girls sat studying in the school library, Robin looked up from her textbook with a sigh. “I can’t believe so many people hated the robot I made. I worked so hard on it. My parents even helped me make the wings.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sarah. “You won second prize. I mean, a jet-pack-powered robot that retrieves stuck kitties and puts out fires? The Fireman3000 was amazing! I could never make that.”
“But so many people on Instagram said how lame it was.”
“They’re just jealous because they aren’t as smart as you.” Sarah pulled her mirror from her bag and held it up for Robin. “That’s the face of a genius. I’m jealous, too.” Robin smiled at her reflection. “Really?”
“Really.” Sarah’s smile and eyes dipped down toward the desk. “I mean, I could never come up with an idea or create something that won a real prize.” “Are you kidding?” said Robin, rummaging in her bag for her own mirror. “Without you, I wouldn’t have known what kind of robot to make. You said, ‘What about a superhero bot who saves kittens from trees?’”
“I was being silly,” said Sarah. Robin found her mirror at last. As she pulled it out, she looked Sarah in the eyes and said, “That was you being creative. Just like in your writing. And if you hadn’t told me I could do it, I never would have finished that bot.” Sarah smiled bashfully as Robin held up the mirror and said, “That’s the face of a best friend.”
Sarah’s smile gained confidence, and then she gently pushed down Robin’s mirror to look at her best friend as she said, “You know, I’ve been thinking maybe I’ll be a teacher.”
“You totally should. You’d be great,” said Robin.
They returned to their books with smiles on their faces, and when the final bell rang and Robin went to retrieve her robot from the science room, she took time to admire the spring- loaded boots that launched her Fireman 3000 off the ground.
When a few years later they graduated from high school, the girls didn’t wander far from their childhood homes or each other, but now they had less time to themselves and every day was not spent in the glow of each other’s smiles or the enlightening reflections of each other’s mirrors.
Robin did however pass many reflective storefront windows and mirrors in her daily routine, to and from the factory where she worked to invent and repair machines at the city’s largest robotics company. But she rarely smiled into those mirrors. Each day she entered a massive gray warehouse in gray overalls and walked among machinery and tools that helped her put together components for everything from satellites to mechanical arms that put caps on toothpaste bottles.
One day, as her twenty-ninth birthday came around the corner, Robin walked to the bus station and sat in dreary silence the whole ride home. Her fingers and arms ached from a long day’s work, but she found herself wondering, “What did I really accomplish?” The question weighed on her, so when she threw open her apartment door, she was determined to do something that would bring her a spark of joy before she went to bed. She tossed aside her purse and pulled her mechanical dog from her closet, taking it to the coffee table to continue her tinkering.
She imagined the sweet-faced, flying robot pup starring as a sidekick in some sort of sci-fi movie, and the thought brought a smile as she settled into the work. When her rumbling stomach drew her away from her task, she grabbed armfuls of the hodgepodge in her fridge and sat down at the kitchen table. She moved aside some papers as she sat down, and as she glanced at the pile of job ads, she froze. It was a printed stack of want ads, each one boasting exciting titles for robotics specialists and practical effects workers for film.
She drew her cell phone from her pocket, the food forgotten, and stared at the numbers on the screen, her thumb hovering, ready to dial. But then, as they had every night this week, her eyes roved past the titles to the qualification requirements. She chewed at her lip, flipping through the pages to find the job that required the fewest years of film set experience. She dialed in the area code, and then quickly hit End. She tossed the phone on the table with a loud clatter and swiped the pages away, letting them rain down to the floor.
The ring of her cell startled her, but Sarah’s name on the screen made her snatch it up. Robin didn’t manage to say anything before Sarah blurted, “Can I come over? It’s been one of those days.”
“Of course!”
“Be there in twenty.”
Robin put down the phone with a smile and a relieved sigh, but then the robot dog caught her eye. She jumped up from the cough and snatched him up, stuffing him in the closet as he smiled up at her. Then she gathered up the papers and tossed them in the trash. Sarah knocked once before letting herself in and plopped down on the couch, leant back her head, and released a sigh through loose lips, making a horse sound. Robin sat beside her, their shoulders touching.
“I quit another one,” said Sarah, looking at the ceiling. Robin sat up. “Really?”
“Yep. Third teaching position in two years, and I quit again,” said Sarah, sounding like Eeyore. “If I want another, I’ll have to move to another district.”
“Why? Was it the principal? The budget?”
Sarah stayed quiet for a long moment. Robin almost spoke up again, but then Sarah turned watery eyes to her and said, “I’m worried I’m not actually helping them, Robin.”
“The kids?” When Sarah nodded, Robin added, “Are you crazy?”
Sarah held up a hand. “Just listen for a minute, Robin.” She leaned forward, looking at her hands on her lap. “They all learn differently, but I have to keep plugging along at the same pace and try to incorporate as many learning techniques in each lesson as I can, but I feel like I’m short-changing them. I can’t give them enough time, and every place I teach, there’s always been one kid who I know will be held back no matter what I do, and I just ... I don’t feel like I’m adding any value to their lives. So, I quit and run somewhere else.”
“It sounds like you’re doing everything you can. How do you know you aren’t helping?
Have you actually asked the kids? Their parents?”
“Well, I talk to the kids all the time, but I mean ... not about me. About them, what they need, what they like, you know?” said Sarah with a shrug. “You’re underestimating the effect you’re having, Sarah. You should ask them.” When Sarah didn’t look up or say anything, Robin added, “But if you’re really unhappy teaching, why don’t you pursue your writing? You could use summer break to work on that screenplay you started last year.”
Sarah put a hand to her face and burst into tears. “That’s a pipe dream, Robin.” She rose and wandered into the kitchen, ‘I need something to drink.’ Robin watched in silence.
As Sarah rummaged in the cupboard for a glass, Robin looked away and noticed something sticking out of Sarah’s abandoned purse. She reached over and extracted the old hand mirror, running her hand nostalgically over the frosted flowers.
“Hey,” said Sarah, making Robin jump. To her surprise, she looked up to find Sarah holding the discarded want ads. “Why would you throw these away?” Her face started to light up. “Did ... did you already get a new job and didn’t tell me?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Then why—”
“Why are you still carrying this silly old thing around?” Robin spoke over her, holding up the mirror.Sarah shrugged with a small smile. “Couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. Reminds me of you.”
Robin blushed, feeling guilty for calling the mirror silly. “I still have mine, too,” she admitted.
“Go get it,” said Sarah. Robin tightened her jaw and shook her head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t have magic powers, Sarah. That was kid stuff.”
“I’m going to find it myself,” said Sarah, and off she went, searching through the junk drawer and then the front closet where Robin stuffed anything that didn’t have a designated place. Her mouth dropped open as she pulled out the dog. Robin flinched.
“What’s this?” said Sarah. “It’s so cute!”
“It’s nothing,” said Robin. “Just a little ... craft project.”
Sarah put a hand on a cocked hip and gave Robin a “really?” look. Holding the dog under one arm, Sarah continued hersearch while Robin sat rooted to the couch burning with embarrassment, and eventually the mirror was found stuffed at the back of a crowded bedroom vanity drawer. Sarah sat on the couch, put the dog in Robin’s lap, and handed her the mirror, gently taking her own back.
“Robin, why aren’t you pursuing your passion? You have the talent and the experience.”
“I don’t have the experience. I’ve never worked in film. I’d have to take an entry level
position, and I can’t afford that.”
“You have robotics experience,” said Sarah firmly. “Have you even called or applied?
You need to talk to someone in person, or at least on the phone.”
“Sarah, there’s no way I could maintain a job like that. I’m smart, sure, but I don’t have
the creative chops to work in film.”
“Robin, you’re plenty creative. Always have been,” said Sarah, nudging Robin’s knee. “I mean, imagine the director coming to you and being like, ‘Hey, Robin, we need a giant ray gun that lights up and moves on its own, think you can—”
“Yeah, and if I screw it up, everyone will hate me!” said Robin, tossing the dog onto the couch. Sarah studied her friend with a sad smile. She put the dog back in Robin’s lap, tipped up Robin’s chin, and held up her own mirror to Robin’s frowning face.
“Robin, you are incredibly creative. I mean, that dog is great, and you did that in your spare time. You’re just not working in a field that lets you use that. If you had a job that let you be creative all the time, you’d not only excel, you’d be happy. There’s no reason to fear failure. You can always try again.”
Robin looked at herself in Sarah’s mirror and cracked a smile, hugging the dog to her chest, his rounded muzzle reflected in the glass with her face. Sarah grinned back and lowered the glass. Robin picked up her own mirror and stared into it for a moment. Then she exhaled, and rose to her feet. She marched to the counter where Sarah had left the want ads and moved them to the table, setting her phone neatly beside them.
“It’s too late right now, but I’ll call tomorrow,” she told Sarah. “I promise.”
“Good.”
Robin returned to the couch and let out a small, wistful chuckle. “Wouldn’t it be cool if I could work on a movie you wrote?”
Sarah scoffed with a flippant wave. “I’ve never finished a single script.”
Robin held up her mirror, wiggling it until Sarah at last glanced into it with a half-smile.
“Sarah, you ought to finish your stories. The only reason you don’t is because you think they aren’t good enough, but you have so much insight to offer the world. You could make a difference with your words.”
Sarah’s small smile grew into a grin and tears suddenly glistened at the corners of her eyes. She gazed down into her own mirror.
“You know what? I’m going to go home and sit down at my computer for a while. See what comes out.”
Robin beamed and hugged Sarah. “That sounds like a great idea.”
A few seasons passed by, but the women found themselves on Robin’s couch many times. And then, one night, in the midst of winter, with hot chocolate clutched in chilly hands and an empty popcorn bowl on the coffee table, they watched credits roll down the TV screen. They squealed as each other’s names popped up on the screen:
Written by Sarah Donovan. Robotics Practical Effects Director: Robin Greene.
Instead of wine glasses, they raised their frosted glass-patterned mirrors and clinked them together in a toast, gazing at their reflections.